‘We saved you a place.’

He looks at her. ‘You sure?’

She nods.

And everybody stares at him then, and for a moment I think maybe he’s going to say something, because Roux doesn’t like it when people stare – in fact Roux isn’t too comfortable around people at all—

But then she takes another step and kisses him softly on the mouth, and he puts down Rosette and holds out his arms—

And I don’t need the Smoking Mirror to know. No one could ignore that kiss, or the way they fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, or the light in her eyes as she takes his hand and turns to smile at everyone—

Go on, I tell her in my shadow-voice. Tell them. Say it. Say it now—

And for a second she looks at me. And I know she’s got my message somehow. But then she looks round at our circle of friends, and Jean-Loup’s mother still standing up and looking like a sucked lemon, and I can see her hesitate. Everyone is watching her – and I know what she’s thinking. It’s obvious. She’s waiting for them to get the Look; the look we’ve seen so many times; the look that says: you don’t belong here – you’re not one of us – you’re different . . .

Around the table, no one speaks. They watch her in silence, all rosy-faced and well-fed, except for Jean-Loup and his mother, of course, who stares at us like we were a den of wolves. There’s Fat Nico holding hands with Alice in her fairy wings; Madame Luzeron, incongruous in her twinset and pearls; Madame Pinot in her nun’s outfit, looking twenty years younger with her hair undone; Laurent with a gleam in his eye; Richard and Mathurin, Jean-Louis and Paupaul sharing a smoke; and none of them – none of them has the Look—

And it’s her face that changes. It softens, somehow. As if a weight has come off her heart. And for the first time since Rosette was born she really looks like Vianne Rocher; the Vianne who blew into Lansquenet and never cared what anyone said—

Zozie gives a little smile.

Jean-Loup grabs hold of his mother’s hand and forces her to sit down on a chair.

Laurent’s mouth drops open a notch.

Madame Pinot goes strawberry-pink.

And Maman says, ‘Folks, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Roux. He’s Rosette’s father.’

9

Monday, 24th December
Christmas Eve. 10.40 p.m.

I HEAR THE collective sigh go round; something that in different circumstances might have been disapproval, but in this case, after food and wine, mellowed by the season and the unaccustomed glamour of snow, seems like the ahhh! that follows a particularly spectacular firework.

Roux looks wary, then he grins, accepts a glass of champagne from Madame Luzeron and raises it to all of us—